How Do Roger Oates Design a New Collection?

We began with a question. What does a modern border look like?

The design ‘Franklin’ is composed of two main elements.  The giant stripe design is the less complicated element, it took only about ten samples to arrive at the final version. Ten samples is pretty fast in our world. The second element is the colour.  The more complicated angle.

We think the general size and proportion of Franklin may be descended from a Rothko-like memory of colour blocks – having spent a lot of time working on a detailed little pattern called “Fulham” we certainly wanted to explore the possibility of something with very large stripes.

We also knew from the start of this design we wanted to really push what are deemed to be ‘less conventional’ colours, we had some interesting combinations on the board that we wanted to use.  These had been our ‘drawing board’ for quite some time. (Literally. Pinned to it.)  The wraps of colour looked great. The mixes of harmonious and jarring colours jumped out as threads of yarn but had so far proved difficult to work into a design.

The Franklin design it turns out, with its wide bold stripes and razor thin border proved to be just the vehicle for these brand new colours.  The colours and design were quickly married together, the colours refined with some more sampling, a few more little tweaks and we arrived. A contemporary, colour-blocked, tonal flatweave design.

Franklin, a Venetian Flatweave runner available from September 2014 as part of the London Collection.  Four colour-ways at approx. 60cm wide so is ideal for narrower stairs – we also have a very smart deep blue Indigo rug on the sewing tables here in the workshop… images to follow in September.

A modern border looks like this.

MAKING THE LONDON COLLECTION – PART THREE

MAKING THE LONDON COLLECTION – PART ONE